What Ftp Does A 170 Lb Man Need To Do A 10 Hour Double Century?

[LivingInThePast]

As the subject line implies, my goal is to finish a double century in 10 hours. My FTP is currently 260 watts and I'm wondering what my target FTP needs to be to reach my goal. I'm not above drafting behind a tandem the entire time which complicates the calculus a lot. I've got 3 months to reach that target FTP.

Can any of you exercise physiologists help me out here? Apologies if this is an oft-repeated post.

 

[swampy1970]

If you were to go out right now and ride 100 miles, could you finish in 5 hours?

What double century do you wish to finish in 10 hours?

 

[JibberJim]

With appropriate aerodynamics you have more than enough all ready.

 

[LivingInThePast]

If you were to go out right now and ride 100 miles, could you finish in 5 hours?

What double century do you wish to finish in 10 hours?

The Davis DC. I think I could come close to a 5 hour century solo, but I haven't tried. I've done a couple flat 50-milers solo in 2.5 hours without eating much and was pretty well wiped. Since that time I've learned I should eat a clif bar/hour and should up my cadence from 80->95.

Does finishing a century in 5 imply finishing a double century in 10? Doesn't sound right.

 

[An old Guy]

The Davis DC. I think I could come close to a 5 hour century solo, but I haven't tried. I've done a couple flat 50-milers solo in 2.5 hours without eating much and was pretty well wiped. Since that time I've learned I should eat a clif bar/hour and should up my cadence from 80->95.

Does finishing a century in 5 imply finishing a double century in 10? Doesn't sound right.

If you could do 100 miles comfortably in 5 hours, you would have a chance of doing 200 in 10. Being wiped out after 2.5 hours and 50 miles bodes poorly.

I think you should concentrate on being on your bike for 10 hours. And find a group that is willing to let you draft for the whole 200 miles.

 

[BrianMacDonald]

I am 5lb less than you with about the same ftp and I have done 5 hr centuries in a group. As I recall the average power (average for all 5 hours) for those rides was in the 210-220 range.

Lot of things to consider here. As RDO is always saying FTP measures 1hr continuous power. This is not that. You will need to be training and measuring at durations longer than 1hr to get an accurate assessment of your chances. The bike you will be on will play a huge role here as will whether you will be solo or in a group.

In general I would say that you have a big enough engine, you need to focus on keeping it going for that amount of time. That is a long time.

 

[swampy1970]

The Davis DC. I think I could come close to a 5 hour century solo, but I haven't tried. I've done a couple flat 50-milers solo in 2.5 hours without eating much and was pretty well wiped. Since that time I've learned I should eat a clif bar/hour and should up my cadence from 80->95.

Does finishing a century in 5 imply finishing a double century in 10? Doesn't sound right.

If those are flattish 50 mile rides in 2.5 hours and you're whipped then you won't be keeping that pace for 200 miles with more than 10,000ft of climbing, poor roads and a fair stretch of gravel.

Other things happen after the first 100 miles. Shorts that could have been really comfy can become irksome after 8 hours - this can effect how you sit on the bike and how much weight goes on your hands/shoulders if you start soft pedaling. Hydration when you're tired is key. The DC often gets extremes of weather - anywhere between 55F and raining or 110F and can assisted oven like on Resurrection are not unheard of.

The Davis Double does have "the mother of all pace lines" from the start, however there's a few factors to be aware of:

1. The course has changed this year, so there may be fewer flat miles before your hit the first hills around Berryessa (the climb to the dam and Cardiac hill). The route north from the lake has changed and not for the quicker - but it does get rid of the **** Lower Chiles Valley Rd section. Knoxville Rd is "lumpy"

2. That paceline is pretty much the most dangerous thing on two wheels I've witnessed. It's basically a bunch of guys, sleep deprived, riding anywhere between 2 and 4 wide on fairly narrow roads. Pick your poison... Personally if I do the DC I ride away from that pace line and enjoy the ride.

3. The first rest stops take forever if you need stuff - especially the one at the fire station near Moscovite corner.

4. If you're not Boonen or Cancellara then the 6 miles or whatever it is of gravel roads that meander uphill will slow you down.

5. You need gas left in the tank for the fast 80 mile run in from the top of Resurrection. If you're on empty then the ride through the flat and open lanes into a brisk wind will be "so much fun".

I think the DC is too nice of a ride to waste on hoping to go fast. Enjoy the day, the good rest stops and have fun - use a 12 hour event of you want to race for 200+ miles. The Davis 400km brevet is fairly quick albeit about 50 miles further. That ride heads over the hills from Davis towards Napa and upto Lake Somona and back. The front group normally doesn't hang around.

 

[LivingInThePast]

BrianMacDonald: So 210-220 range means I need an FTP of 293 to be in the 'endurance' zone if I was doing the entire 200 miles solo. I'm currently at at an FTP of 271 and I'm skeptical I'll hit 293 by then. Anyone have any sense of the tradeoffs between drafting vs 9000 ft of climbing + gravel roads in this calculus? My FTP of 271 puts me in the 'Tempo' zone which I can't sustain riding solo, up hills, and over gravel but will drafting make up the entire difference?

Swampy: I'd like to enjoy the ride but to me a large part of the enjoyment comes from not being in the saddle over 10 hours. My neck and butt hurt too much to enjoy it past that point so I'm really using this as a go-no-go decision. If I have to be on the course longer than that I'll probably pass.

 

[Nigel Doyle]

What's the longest ride you've done? 200 miles / 360km is a bloody long way. Are you following a training plan / got a coach?

Personally if you haven't done a century in say 4.30 - 4.45 doing a double century in 10.0 is beyond your fitness / endurance at this point in time in my opinion. Doing a century in 5.0 doesn't equate to doing a double in 10.0 because of the fatigue factor. You'll also need a damn good nutrition plan for the day just to finish (regardless of your finish time).

Good luck. I think you're going to need all the luck you can.

 

[swampy1970]

BrianMacDonald: So 210-220 range means I need an FTP of 293 to be in the 'endurance' zone if I was doing the entire 200 miles solo. I'm currently at at an FTP of 271 and I'm skeptical I'll hit 293 by then. Anyone have any sense of the tradeoffs between drafting vs 9000 ft of climbing + gravel roads in this calculus? My FTP of 271 puts me in the 'Tempo' zone which I can't sustain riding solo, up hills, and over gravel but will drafting make up the entire difference?

Swampy: I'd like to enjoy the ride but to me a large part of the enjoyment comes from not being in the saddle over 10 hours. My neck and butt hurt too much to enjoy it past that point so I'm really using this as a go-no-go decision. If I have to be on the course longer than that I'll probably pass.

Here's the new route:

http://ridewithgps.com/routes/6786121

196 miles and about 9,000ft of elevation gain.

The gravel is "fun" there's also lots of ups and downs in the gravel - in all, that section plus the climb up big canyon is 10 miles of fun. Only the last mile or so towards the summit (after the water stop) are hard - the rest is just slower than usual. If you have good bike handling skills on loose stuff then you'll be fine. Good bottle cages are handy.

You could always use the plan of pacelines to the dam, hang on in the hills all the way to Reaurrection and the on the flat lands afterwards look for a bunch of some of the killer tandems.

 

[bgoetz]

Just doing 200 miles and 9000 feet with gravel roads is a big challenge. Setting a time limit and trying to "bench race" yourself makes no sense, especially when you have no experiance in doing such an effort. Add to this your trying to make it a "go no go decision" quite honestly shows a lack in perspective of the challenge itself. I think your approaching this all wrong. Forget the 10hr thing and take on the challenge of a double, train hard from now until then making sure to get in a few 100+ mile rides with a bit of climbing, dial in the nutrition and then go at the event with your primary goal being completing the event. If you finish in 10hrs, bonus. If you don't and can't take another moment in the saddle, I am sure they have a SAG.

 

[LivingInThePast]

What's the longest ride you've done? 200 miles / 360km is a bloody long way. Are you following a training plan / got a coach?

Personally if you haven't done a century in say 4.30 - 4.45 doing a double century in 10.0 is beyond your fitness / endurance at this point in time in my opinion. Doing a century in 5.0 doesn't equate to doing a double in 10.0 because of the fatigue factor. You'll also need a damn good nutrition plan for the day just to finish (regardless of your finish time).

Good luck. I think you're going to need all the luck you can.

I did the full 200 miles in 1979 which took 14 hours. Bloody painful. Don't wish to relive that experience. Tried again in 1991 and sagged out at the lunch stop after 5 hours. I think I'm in better shape than either of those attempts but I'm also 36 and 24 years older, respectively. I've been using TrainerRoad as my coach following their Hi-Volume SweetSpot training plan religiously.

I'm finding the nutrition planning to be very confusing. Generally I'm pretty good about not tossing my cookies (though I threw up at the end of the Avenue of the Olives Marathon in 1978 ) I'll take any pointers you can offer.

As for luck, I've always had a lot of that.

 

[bgoetz]

Use the 100-mile+ training rides to dial in your nutrition. You will want a mix of calories from fluids, simple sugars, and "real food". The combination and order is really for you to figure out. My experiance is based on endurance MTB races. The first part fluids always had calories, they were easy to digest and quick, plus your going pretty hard the first 2hrs so just getting fluids was hard, this way you get calories too. I found a small snack that I could pop and enjoyed and tossed in some of those because at some point you just wouldn't feel like eating, for me it had to be something I wanted to eat, snack size Paydays worked great. I wanted a awesome treat for my "lunch", a PB and honey was my go to. In between all of that I went with cliff bars, gels, and perpetum tabs. I ate the perpetum on a schedule of every 2-3hrs. After the first 3hrs all of my bottles had just water and maybe endurolites as drinks really become hard to stomach for me. Any fuel the last 2hrs was all gels as anything else was not near quick enough. I also used gels during the first couple hours as the efforts were too hard for anything else. A bit of caffeine is always nice at least mid day, more if you can stomach it.

 

[swampy1970]

I find that getting enough water is key. Food is easy to remember (and I don't mean to make it seem less important) but enough water, especially on the 130+ mile rides makes all the difference to me. I prefer a weaker solution of something like plain Hammer Heed if available and solid foods that aren't pure sugar based - pbj sammiches, bananas, fig newtons, Cliff bars, small oranges pre-peeled in a plastic bag are ace IF I have a little too tube bag to carry stuff on long training rides. They clean the mouth well but get squished in the back pocket.

By using a weaker drink solution I can drink more and not suffer gastric distress and I get my calories from solids. I find this way that my performance drops off less in the latter few hour this way. With regular strength sports drinks I get the farts after 5 hours and drinking slows down a lot after 7. I'm never really fit enough to ride 8 hour events hard but some events like the 200 mile Alta Alpina Challenge down really give you anywhere to really soft pedal with 21,000ft of climbing - so keeping the fluids up in that instance is key.

But just like anything else, eating and digesting is something you need to get used to on the bike. The only way you'll get used to it is in 3+ hour rides. A few 100 milers would be useful but I wouldn't beat myself for not doing them as long as you get the hard 3+ hour rides in.

I think from your past experiences that doing even the first 100 miles in 5 hours is not going to happen. On well surfaced flat roads maybe - and while the Davis ride is flatter than most DC's, many of the roads aren't exactly smooth or flat. You will have a head/cross wind in the last 40 miles and if you don't expect the hardest possible scenario -a northerly tailwind that'll make it hotter than hell as we get the valley heat recycled - expect 100+F until after 8pm peaking around 110 to 115F during the day. 10 hours hard in those temps for the unfit and unsure - you'll be risking more than just cramps. Pray for SE winds (the delta breeze) and no cloud cover the night before.

 

[swampy1970]

I did the full 200 miles in 1979 which took 14 hours. Bloody painful. Don't wish to relive that experience. Tried again in 1991 and sagged out at the lunch stop after 5 hours. I think I'm in better shape than either of those attempts but I'm also 36 and 24 years older, respectively. I've been using TrainerRoad as my coach following their Hi-Volume SweetSpot training plan religiously.

I'm finding the nutrition planning to be very confusing. Generally I'm pretty good about not tossing my cookies (though I threw up at the end of the Avenue of the Olives Marathon in 1978 ) I'll take any pointers you can offer.

As for luck, I've always had a lot of that.

So you count 14 hours of pain and sagging after 5 hours as good luck?

Just saying

 

[swampy1970]

So I had a look back in WKO to 2011, when I was 163lb and based off the 20 minute and actual ridden 60 minute power (I didn't test 60 minutes or really test 20 either at full gas based off calendar entries) I had an FTP of ~290 watts. I finished the old Davis DC course in 12:14 inc rest stops and was fairly tired but that time did include about 20 minutes for lunch and a fair few 10 minute rest stops - apart from the fire station near the end and that chili. *drool*

The old course went up Cobb Mtn which has a few miles of 10%+ that required sitting on 240 watts to stop falling over sideways at speeds slower than 5mph.

Unlike your pained background, I had fun as an amateur road racing guy that was somewhat handy at time trialing. I'd put in a good few years of riding before that David Double ride in 2011.

Based upon that, I'd say you'd have a really, really hard time getting sub 10 hours.

 

[LivingInThePast]

Maybe I'll just sit this one out.

So I had a look back in WKO to 2011, when I was 163lb and based off the 20 minute and actual ridden 60 minute power (I didn't test 60 minutes or really test 20 either at full gas based off calendar entries) I had an FTP of ~290 watts. I finished the old Davis DC course in 12:14 inc rest stops and was fairly tired but that time did include about 20 minutes for lunch and a fair few 10 minute rest stops - apart from the fire station near the end and that chili. *drool*

The old course went up Cobb Mtn which has a few miles of 10%+ that required sitting on 240 watts to stop falling over sideways at speeds slower than 5mph.

Unlike your pained background, I had fun as an amateur road racing guy that was somewhat handy at time trialing. I'd put in a good few years of riding before that David Double ride in 2011.

Based upon that, I'd say you'd have a really, really hard time getting sub 10 hours.

 

[swampy1970]

Steve needs to add a chicken emoticon...

Do the ride. Get the miles in and have fun. If anything it'll give you a very relevant data point for next year where you may be able to achieve your goal. Then again, maybe you've talked yourself out of it already...

 

[LivingInThePast]

Steve needs to add a chicken emoticon...

Do the ride. Get the miles in and have fun. If anything it'll give you a very relevant data point for next year where you may be able to achieve your goal. Then again, maybe you've talked yourself out of it already...

Perhaps you've noticed my avatar . I may still sign up and sag out at the 10 hour mark. I'll have to see how my training progresses.

 

[LivingInThePast]

So I had a look back in WKO to 2011, when I was 163lb and based off the 20 minute and actual ridden 60 minute power (I didn't test 60 minutes or really test 20 either at full gas based off calendar entries) I had an FTP of ~290 watts. I finished the old Davis DC course in 12:14 inc rest stops and was fairly tired but that time did include about 20 minutes for lunch and a fair few 10 minute rest stops - apart from the fire station near the end and that chili. *drool*

The old course went up Cobb Mtn which has a few miles of 10%+ that required sitting on 240 watts to stop falling over sideways at speeds slower than 5mph.

Unlike your pained background, I had fun as an amateur road racing guy that was somewhat handy at time trialing. I'd put in a good few years of riding before that David Double ride in 2011.

Based upon that, I'd say you'd have a really, really hard time getting sub 10 hours.

How does the 'old Davis DC course' compare with this year's model?